I was always that girl who thought it was odd for women to date men more than 5 years older than her. Even though I have an aunt who got married at 16 to my uncle who is eleven years older than her, I just thought it was gross. Not to mention a little creepy.

I knew that I would never date someone that much older than me. I mean really. If a guy is 10+ years older than you, what do you really have in common? He will look a lot older than you, be worn out a lot sooner than you, and just think about it. He was 10, 15, or even 20 years old when you were being born! Ew.

But now I am 19-years-old and my boyfriend is 28. We are completely in love and I wouldn’t give him up for the world. It is safe to say that I am a happy hypocrite.

I didn’t seek out an older man, nor was he a creep looking for a fresh piece of ass. We just happened to be in the same place at the same time. He is tall, dark, and handsome. His body is deliciously toned, with a tattoo wrapping around his strong shoulder. I never want to stop looking at him.

I never thought in a million years he would even like a girl like me. I’m not ugly, but I definitely wasn’t first off the bench in his league. My overgrown pixie was pushed back with a headband, my sunburnt cheeks couldn’t bear the weight of any makeup, and my shorts and baggy v-neck were doing nothing to enhance my curvy 5’4 figure.

One thing led to another until we discovered something: We never actually knew how old the other was. Our very knowledgeable friend somehow messed up our ages when setting us up. He told me that Justin (my boyfriend) was “23 or 24ish” and he told Justin that “yeah, she’s at least 21…”. We didn’t find out the true age difference between us until our first real date.

By this time, we had been talking all day, every day. I knew I was going to fall in love with this man.

We clicked in every way possible and it felt like we were old friends picking up where we left off in another lifetime. I was crazy about him. So crazy, that when I found out he was way past my 5 year age limit, I said fuck it. Age is just a number right? My view totally changed. We had so many things in common, much more than I ever thought possible. I also came to find his streaks of grey hair and five o’clock shadow to be sexy. I even thought about how great it would be to be the young trophy wife on his arm amidst the old bitter wives of his friends.

People always judge us when they find out our age difference. They say we won’t make it because we are in two different phases of our lives. Which is true. We are in two different places and I wouldn’t want it any other way. We support each other and build each other up.

We can’t help who we fall in love with and that was a lesson I was more than happy to accept. A person’s age doesn’t define them. In fact, numbers in general don’t define people, whether its a number on the scale, the number of people they’ve slept with, or how old they are. It doesn’t matter. Love is love. And we plan to share our story with our kids to teach them that love knows no age, weight, race, religion, gender, etc. It is only you and that person, and if you know its right you will do anything to make it work.

This is for the women who are first to get naked, howl at the moon and jump into the sea. This is for the women who seek relentless joy; the ones who know how to laugh with their whole souls. The women who speak to strangers because they have no fear in their hearts. This is for the women who drink coffee at midnight and wine in the morning, and dare you to question it. This is for the women who throw down what they love, and don’t waste time following society’s pressures to exist behind a white picket fence. The women who create wildly, unbalanced, ferociously and in a blur at times. This — is for you.

“When Janne has a new poem written, I shut my life down to do nothing but read it, and then when I turn my life back on, everything is better.” — James Altucher